by Lee Ramsay
Provided I find a way out, do I leave the other prisoners behind? Do I risk my escape for people I don’t know? Uncomfortable to contemplate, the questions and their moral implications complicated his escape plan. Some might flee without a second thought to the others, but can I do the same? Do I help the more vicious prisoners, who might turn on me to save their skins?
Tristan also wondered about Gwistain and Groush. He had heard nothing about either man since Ankara imprisoned him. He wondered where the prince was kept, and was beginning to doubt Groush was still alive. If he was honest, he knew them little better than the other prisoners; even so, he knew them from before the madness life had become.
If I can find and free them, we might be able to escape.
It was a fool’s hope. He clung to it anyway, a buffer against the callous building between himself and everyone else.
Chapter 36
“This is the sixth time we’ve found him, Your Grace. He surrenders each time without fighting or fleeing,” the young Dushken said, gesturing at Tristan. The youth was the largest – and outside Urzgeth the most brutal – of the huntsmen he had yet seen. Ankara’s head reached the bottom of the brute’s chest, and he was broad enough through the shoulders to make up three of her. He spoke with the utmost deference, eyes averted and his posture submissive.
The grand duchess kept her eyes fixed on Tristan as he hung by his wrists from the small cell’s ceiling. Unlike the gauzy robes she wore the other times he had seen her in the dungeons, she was dressed in a gown similar to the one she had worn when they first met. Her embroidered skirts rustled as she approached him, their folds muffling the soft click of her boots against the stone floor. Kohl-lined eyes narrowed as she tilted her head to one side, her hands folded behind her back. “What is your assessment of the boy, Shath?”
“He is the cleverest of the prey,” Shath rumbled, lurking behind her right shoulder. “Had he more skill with a knife, Ruzrek would be dead. As it is, he will never see from his right eye again. This one nearly killed Orgath as well.”
“Which one is Orgath?”
“His skull was smashed with a rock. We were forced to kill him when it became clear that he’d never stop drooling or wetting himself like an infant.”
Tristan’s lips twitched; he recalled Orgath well, though he had not known the name. The Dushken had tracked him into the older tunnels, where he had urinated into a tumble of stones from a collapsed wall. As the huntsman investigated, he snuck up behind the brute and bashed him across the head with a rock. Watching the huntsman spasming on the floor had been most satisfying.
“I fear this one has outlived his usefulness. His spirit has been smothered.”
“You are quite mistaken,” Ankara said, her low-cut leather corset creaking as she stroked Tristan’s stubbled cheek. She took his chin in her hand, the web between thumb and forefinger pressing into the skin below his lip as she forced his head down. “Quite mistaken.”
“But he does not run. He has become meek as a lamb led to the slaughter.”
“Hardly. If you are to earn your first brand and someday lead your own pack, you must learn to understand your prey. The meekness is a ruse. Defiance is in his eyes, as strong as ever.”
The massive Dushken wrinkled his brow and moved closer. Black eyes met Tristan’s green, and his upper lip curled back to bare one long, yellowing fang. “I did not see.”
Ankara shrugged out of her short-waisted coat and tossed it across the throne-like chair in the front of the room. “Why would you? You have not dealt with a prisoner such as this before. None of you have, as we seldom have one like him. You saw what he wants you to see – a defeated and broken prisoner.”
“I do not understand.”
“Nor do I. Not entirely.” The grand duchess locked her unblinking gaze with Tristan’s. “Wait outside. Do not allow any to enter. No matter what you may hear, do not disturb me.”
Shath bowed and hurried from the chamber. The door scraped against the frame, its latch clicking into place as he closed it behind him.
“I do not like games I have not orchestrated,” she said after several moments.
“Who says I am playing a game? I have no interest in amusing you.”
Ankara’s eyebrow lifted with mild amusement. “Passive defiance, is it? Do you not recall the prisoners I killed who sought to please me with compliance?”
Tristan sneered at her. “Do you think I could forget?”
“Mind your tone before you annoy me enough to remind you that I am your better.”
“You’re no better than me. You’re a sick old woman, clothed in a lie.”
The grand duchess’s carmine-painted lips twitched as she paced toward him. Her emerald glittered with reflected brazier light as her breasts swelled against her corset’s stiffened leather. “I see. You no longer fear me, and think to annoy me into killing you. It shall not work.”
“I can be very annoying when I put my mind to it.”
Ankara chuckled with genuine amusement. “No doubt. It is quite rare for someone to cease being afraid. It happens once, perhaps twice, every few decades.”
“What is left to be afraid of?” Tristan asked with a sour twist of his lips. “Watching you and that bitch of a kinswoman rape and murder us has gotten old, Ankara.”
“Your Grace, or my lady, if you please. You are a prisoner, and I am still a noblewoman.”
“I think we’ve moved past that, don’t you? You’ve taken everything else, but still want me defiant.”
Ankara swept in, cradling his scrotum and squeezing it hard enough to make him grimace with pain. “I have not taken all.”
“Nor will you. Take that, and you lose the essence you steal. I win, as I’ll no longer have what you need.”
“You are not so singular as to be irreplaceable.”
“Then get a knife and be done with it.” The sorceress’s grip tightened, then released as she backed away. Tristan gave a dry, humorless laugh. “I thought as much. You hate to lose.”
Her voice turned cold. “I have lost before. More than you can know.”
“But to lose to an orphan prisoner when you have all the advantages would rankle, wouldn’t it?” He shrugged, an awkward movement with his arms extended over his head, but he managed to make the gesture insulting. “I don’t have to escape. Take my manhood, and I win. Take my life, and I still win. I neither fear nor hate you anymore.”
Ankara said nothing for long moments, her emerald pulsing in time with her heartbeat. “You think you have this all figured out.”
“The fact that I’m still breathing says I’ve struck a nerve – which, as I see it, means your little game has ended in a draw. I may be deprived of my freedom, which means I haven’t beaten you, but you can’t kill me without losing to a nameless orphan. That nettles your pride, doesn’t it?”
The irritation on her face eased into lines of amusement, then into something predatory. “If you think you have vexed me, you are quite mistaken. We have not yet begun to play...and you are not as smart as you think.”
He ignored the adrenaline chilling his nerves as an irresistible urge to provoke her rose. “Probably not. How long have I been here? Five months? Six? You may have broken the others, but you’re boring me.”
“Would you be surprised to learn I have grown bored as well? I can acquire what I need in many ways, and there are better things to spend my time on. Sathra is quite adept in her lessons, would you not agree?”
“Sathra is an idiot, and you are a fool if you trust her.”
“I have her well in hand. This is not the first time I have trained someone to rule in my name,” Ankara said. “You are proving to be one of the more entertaining diversions to pass through Anahar in many, many years.”
“I’m so glad I could amuse you.”
“Sarcasm does not become you.”
Her fingers traced along his body, running across the rough stitches in recent cuts and half-healed scars. Tristan winced as she press
ed down on a fresh wound and shuddered as she pressed her lips to bleeding laceration. “Will we start with the rack, or do you have some other torture device you prefer?”
She broke from her suckling and slanted a look up at him. Her tongue flicked against the skin over his racing heart. “Give me some credit for inventiveness. I look forward to making you suffer, and learning who you truly are.”
ALONE IN A CELL, TRISTAN hung by wrists. The single brazier had been snuffed, not a glimmer of light coming from coals gone cold and dead. Shath took the torch and bolted the door behind him after Ankara’s departure, leaving him in utter darkness. The only sounds were his breathing, the rattle of his chain, and the wet splatter of his bowels and bladder releasing. The latter ended soon enough, as nobody came to feed him or supply him with drink. The stench of his waste faded, though he was uncertain if it was due to the length of time it pooled around his feet or his nose growing inured to it.
There was almost no external physical sensation in the blackness. The air was neither cold nor warm. The tingling numbness in his fingers as the manacles dug into his wrists and his strained shoulders were his sole evidence he had not become some disembodied spirit lost in the dark. Hunger clawed his belly, and thirst stole the moisture from his mouth and throat.
Left with his thoughts and little sensation, he thought he might go mad. Tristan suspected Ankara attempted to drive him to insanity’s edge through discomfort and deprivation. He fought against it as long as he could, but in time gave in to screams simply to hear something and gain some sense of being. That, too, was soon denied him when his dry throat gave out, robbing him of his voice and leaving with screams no louder than rasping breaths. His lax muscles cramped when he slept, dragging him back into consciousness.
The line between sleep and wakefulness grew so blurred he could not discern dreams from wakeful delusions. Rational thought grew fleeting, drowned in pain, exhaustion, and a desperate hunger and thirst. Animal grunts tore at his throat as he thrashed at the chain’s end like a trapped animal. Images of Dorishad in his mind’s eye were lifeless, drained of color as though seen through a distorting fog. He could not recall Anthoun’s features, the old man’s lined face a blurry void; echoes of Dougan’s voice drowned in his hoarse breathing.
He shied from the corrupted memories of Jayna. Sathra’s face laughed at him in her place.
The cell door’s bolt slid out of its seat with a loud snap. Brilliant torchlight flooded the room as two Dushken entered and lifted the burning brands overhead. Pain stabbed Tristan’s watering eyes, leaving him torn between hiding them against his arm or staring hungrily at the light.
Urzgeth stepped between the unbranded huntsmen and raked him with a disdainful glance. He gestured for one of the unbranded youths to unlock the youth’s restraints. “Her grace wishes to see you.”
Tristan gasped and collapsed as the manacles released. A violent cramp seized his shoulders, and bloody cuts and broken scabs trickled blood where the fetters bit his skin. Unable to support himself from hunger and thirst, he lay on the ground for a moment before the Dushken youths hauled him upright.
He stumbled as the unbranded huntsmen dragged him in Urzgeth’s wake. The elder hunter led them through the dungeons to an open doorway, beyond which lay a well-lit room. They shoved him over the threshold, which – combined with his weakness – sent him to his hands and knees.
Ankara reclined in a simple chair, her body clad in a plain dress of fine black wool. Between them stood a plain wooden table lit by white tapers in brass candlesticks, supporting various plates bearing steaming food. Turkey legs cooked to crisp gold sizzled in pooling juices. Crocks of steaming whipped potatoes tinted gold from melting butter rested beside bowls heaped with crimson apples, gold-blushing pears, fat peaches and apricots, and succulent citrus. A bottle of white cider rested in a metal bucket mounded with crushed ice, and glass pitchers brimming with clean water stood in the center of the table.
The rich scent was agony. Tristan’s hollow stomach rumbled and cramped, doubling him over with a gasp even as his dry mouth found enough moisture to wet his tongue.
“So good of you to join us.” The grand duchess’s lip curled as her sapphire eyes settled on him, and her amusement colored her voice. Her lower lip extended in a pout as she made a soft sound of mock pity and sipped from a glass of water. “You must forgive me. After our last conversation, I became rather distracted by an affair of state and forgot to leave orders for you to be fed and watered. By the time I remembered, there was an incident with some prisoners who very nearly escaped. In all the confusion, I fear you were forgotten.”
Tristan spared her the briefest glance before returning his eyes to the food spread on the table. He heard what she said, but the words made little sense.
“I was quite enjoying our conversation.” Ankara’s gown swirled around her feet as she rose and moved between the young man and the table. Her saccharine sincerity made him wary. “As I am sure you will recall, I did say it has been some time since a prisoner ceased fearing me. In truth, you surprised me with several astute observations. I had hoped to continue our discussion sooner, but alas...”
Eyes narrowed, he licked cracked, dry lips. “What do you want of me?”
“Not who you are, in terms of where you are from. That is no longer important to me, and I think we have established you have no intention of speaking it. No, I want to learn who you truly are.”
The sorceress selected a plump apple. Her white teeth sank into the fruit with a crisp snap, and she wiped the juice trailing down her chin with the back of her hand. “After my neglect in seeing you tended, I thought it fitting to begin the next phase of our discussions with a gesture of generosity. All of this,” she said, gesturing with the apple, “is for you. As much of it as you can eat.”
Suspicious, he nonetheless staggered to his feet and took a step forward. The Dushken holding his arm jerked him back, nearly bringing him to his knees once more.
Ankara set the apple on the table with a sigh and glided toward the room’s far end. A flick of her fingers summoned a sphere of light to hover at her shoulder, which drove away the shadows gathered at the chamber’s far end. “Unfortunately, there is a matter which must be dealt with before we can share a meal. I am afraid it cannot wait. To do so would ruin my appetite.”
Tristan's brows furrowed as the huntsmen dragged him after the noblewoman. Against the wall were two stools; an Anahari man stood on the one and a small, fragile young woman on the other. Both were nude and gagged, hands bound behind their backs and their pale and bruised skin blood-spattered. Thick nooses draped their necks, tied to an iron bar bolted to the ceiling.
There was something familiar about them both.
“I believe the three of you know each other, do you not?” Ankara asked, moving to stand in front of the bound captives. Her sapphire eyes slanted up at the man. “I must admit, their strategy was more innovative than I thought them capable of devising. Eosan has developed quite the brutal streak since you last saw each other; he gathered other men to form his own hunting pack. Rather than hunt my Dushken, though, they track down other prisoners – murdering them for the food, or using them as diversions against my huntsmen.
“Kayla, however, appears to be the more intelligent – and the more ruthless – of the two.” The sorceress brushed her knuckles across the young woman’s cheek. The young woman cringed from her touch. “It is a pity her family attempted to rise above their station through the violent overthrow of their overlords. Her use of her body to build a band of men willing to protect and feed her speaks volumes about her practical nature. Had I identified it sooner, I might have found a use for her.”
Ankara faced Tristan with a sigh. “As I said, they came quite close to the stairs leading from the dungeons. Their band stumbled into guards who had not been treated with rishka. Those men died thinking they were fighting off an escape attempt. Of course, many of the prisoners died as well. I am afraid I cannot decide which
of the two must die. Both would be useful, but I cannot allow them to think they might continue to work together.”
A cold, sick feeling washed through his body as he shrank back. “I don’t understand...”
“Oh, yes you do. I need your help. They need your help as well, and you need theirs.” The grand duchess paced toward him with a liquid seductiveness. “Eosan would make an excellent soldier. I could find him a place far on the eastern edges of the desert kingdoms, where he would be useful without his orphanry being an embarrassment. Kayla could become a representative to one of the desert nations; the savages desire Anahari women and are forever trying to breed their slaves to be as fine as ours. Her ruthlessness and willingness to do what is necessary to achieve her goals would be an asset in trade negotiations, don’t you think?”
“How does this help me?”
“I thought that would be obvious. Whomever you choose will be spared the delights they have found as my guest. You and that individual will be allowed to eat and drink as much as you wish and receive a comfortable bed for the night. You also get the satisfaction of giving one of them not just their life, but their freedom.”
Tristan’s vision turned gray and grainy as he forgot to breathe. Eosan and Kayla stared at him, shivering as Urzgeth stepped between them with a bored expression on his bearded face.
The sorceress’s amused voice came to him through the buzzing in his ears. “Which will you choose – the strong young man or the delicate young woman? I lay my wager on the young woman. No doubt she would be grateful enough for her life and a fine meal to bed you. Or perhaps your preference runs to men? I am certain you could persuade Eosan to share his body if he has you to thank for his life.”